dc.description.abstract | Owing to the significant increase in population, the lands have become scarce.
Therefore, the prices of land also have increased. To address this issue, people tend
to buy apartments instead of individual land plots to construct a house. The height
and the complexity of these residential buildings may easily lead to fires and there
will be property losses, injuries, and deaths worldwide every year. Hence, nowadays
people are concerned about the safety from fire in all these apartments due to these
incidents. The aim of this research is to identify a better preventive measure for fire
accidents in high-rise residential buildings in Sri Lanka. An extensive literature
review was carried out to discover the current practice in worldwide fire
prevention. This study was conducted using a questionnaire survey with apartment
building occupants to identify the fire safety measures currently being practiced in
the Sri Lankan context regarding the ICTAD fire regulations. Simultaneously, the
statistical data relating to fire incidents in Sri Lanka for the past few years and major
reasons for SL apartment building fires were collected from the fire department. The
collected data were analysed based on 3 building height categories. From the
findings, faulty wirings were identified as the major reason for apartment fires. Most
occupants are unaware of fire safety regulations, and also some of the buildings are
not facilitated with required fire safety measures. Finally, it is strongly
recommended to conduct demonstration programmes for public awareness and to
practice fire safety regulations. | en_US |